I have been spending sometime relearning Java through a textbook I used in undergrad. At the tail end of their explanation on exceptions, they present the following code:
public class ReadingObjects {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try{
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("objects");
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
try{
while(true){
Auto temp = (Auto)ois.readObject();
System.out.println(temp);
}
}
catch(EOFException eofe){
System.out.println("End of file has been reached.");
}
catch(ClassNotFoundException cnfe){
System.out.println(cnfe.getMessage());
}
finally{
System.out.println("Closing file. . .");
ois.close();
}
}
catch(FileNotFoundException fnfe){
System.out.println("Unable to find the objects file.");
}
catch(IOException ioe){
ioe.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
The book's reasoning for using two try/catch blocks is because the program will throw an EOFException no matter what since the ObjectInputStream class has no means to check if there are any more objects in the file (it does not have an equivalent to hasNext() that the Scanner class offers). Also, once an exception is thrown, any code that was written after the point in the try that generated the exception will be ignored; Java will go straight to the catch block for the exception in question. Hence, the inner try/catch block takes care of the EOFException and then jumps into the finally portion. The outer try block takes care of any of the remaining exceptions.
My main question is why use 2 try/catch blocks for this? It seems like it's an overly complicated solution. To be sure I was having the right understanding on this, I went ahead and wrote up the following code which uses only one try/catch block:
public class ReadingObjects {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("objects");
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
try{
while(true){
Auto temp = (Auto)ois.readObject();
System.out.println(temp);
}
}
catch(EOFException eofe){
System.out.println("End of file has been reached.");
}
catch(ClassNotFoundException cnfe){
System.out.println(cnfe.getMessage());
}
catch(FileNotFoundException fnfe){
System.out.println("Unable to find the objects file.");
}
catch(IOException ioe){
ioe.printStackTrace();
}
finally{
System.out.println("Closing file. . .");
ois.close();
}
}
}
With the second solution, I still obtain the same output as I did with the first (the book's) solution. Are there any reservations to doing it this way? Should I be wary of adding the throws declaration in my main method?
Any clarification and input on this would be appreciated.
These are two different techniques for handling exception. In first code you are using nested try catch block in sometimes a situation may arise where a part of a block may cause one error and the entire block itself may cause another error. In such cases, exception handlers have to be nested.
in second code you are using try with multiple catch blocks. Both are given as same output but these two are different techniques only for handle the exception.
ois.close() might throw an exception as well. It will be handled gracefully in the first implementation but bubble-up in the second...
The book's explanation doesn't hold water. The EOFException and ClassNotFoundException could just as easily be caught at the outer level. The real difference would be if the ClassNotFoundException was caught inside the while loop, soyou could continue reading other objects you might have the .class file for. However that exception really indicates a deployment problem, and so it may not make much sense to continue reading the stream.
Related
Will the following finally clause be executed, if an exception is thrown by the PrintWriter?
try{
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(filename);
try {
//output
} finally {
out.close();
}
} catch {
//handle exception
}
If the PrintWriter throws an exception, then the nested try block will never get executed, but why the nested finally clause will still be executed, even it's nested and skipped?
Updates:
I ran some tests, if an exception is thrown before the nested try clause, that nested finally will not be executed.
If the exception is thrown inside the nested try clause, then the inner finally and the outter catch will be executed.
No because the inner try block will not be reached when an exception occurs before and therefore the finally block is not reached either.
Finally block is always executed whether exception is handled or not. Even though their is an error and it reaches to catch block, it will go to finally block to execute the piece of code.
finally block is a block that is used to execute important code such
as closing connection, stream etc.
So, Inside try{} block you placed try and finally, but you asked about the catch of outside try ,thus its not going inside the first try block.That finally wont work.
P.S. : If you put finally something like this:
try{
try{...}
finally{...}
}catch(Exception e){...}
finally{... }
//in case of exception also , the outside finally is going to work.
P.S.: Though you got your answer , but the concept is for reference of other naive programmers
An uglier variant (sometimes generated by the IDE) one sees also:
// *** UGLY
PrintWriter out = null;
try {
out = new PrintWriter(filename);
//output
} catch (IOException e) {
//handle exception
} finally {
if (out != null) {
try {
out.close();
} catch (IOException e2) {
// IGNORE
}
}
}
That explains the code a bit: as close may throw an IOException too, the code becomes cumbersome. Your code still needs nested exceptions.
With try-with-resources this can & should be written as:
try (PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(filename)) {
//output
} catch (IOException e) {
//handle exception
} // Automatically closes.
And no longer nested exceptions.
The biggest advantage is that you need not catch any exception, and just add a throws IOException in the method signature.
folks. I'm trying to write to a file from a stack. The stack was created by reading from another file. I'm using the stack so that I can reverse the file I read in. The file names to read and write to are from the command line.
This is how I have my stack implemented:
while(read.hasNext()) {
stack.push(read.next());}
The code for my other file that the stack is supposed to write to:
FileWriter w = null;
try {
w = new FileWriter(new File(args[1]));
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
if (!stack.isEmpty()) { //this was a while statement
try {
w.write(stack.pop());
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
} else {
System.out.println("Didn't make it.");
}
The problem that I'm having is when I run my program, the file I want to write to is created, but nothing gets written to the file. I originally thought that my stack didn't have anything in it (that's why I changed my while statement to an if; it's temporary). The "Didn't make it." didn't print so I now know it's not that. What am I doing wrong here? Any help is appreciated.
After w.write(stack.pop()); call the fush() method:
w.write(stack.pop());
w.flush();
and you can return the while statement. At the end call w.close();
the method stack.pop returns an Object if you do not specify at the time of declaration like this
Stack<String> stack = new Stack<String>();
and after writing you should use w.flush() and also you should use the w.close.
you should nest the while statement itself into the try block
for instance
try {
while(!stack.isEmpty()) {
w.write(stack.pop()); // assuming you have declared it as Stack<E>
}
w.flush();
w.close();
} catch(IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
EDIT:
after you are done with FileWriter when you close it, that has to nested inside a try catch block to catch any IOException if thrown. if you use the w.write() method inside the try catch block that is within the while loop then after the while loop iteration is over you have to build another try catch to place w.close()
I just write a simple commandwrapper in java, this is construction function:
Process process;
Thread in;
Thread out;
public CommandWrapper(Process process) {
this.process = process;
final InputStream inputStream = process.getInputStream();
// final BufferedReader
//final BufferedReader r = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
final byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
out = new Thread() {
// String line;
int lineNumber = 0;
public void run() {
try {
while (true) {
int count = inputStream.read(buffer);
System.out.println(lineNumber + ":"
+ new String(buffer, 0, count - 1));
// line=r.readLine();
// System.out.println(lineNumber+":"+line);
lineNumber++;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
}
}
};
final BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
System.in));
final OutputStream outputStream = process.getOutputStream();
in = new Thread() {
String line;
public void run() {
try {
//while (true) {
outputStream.write((reader.readLine() + "/n")
.getBytes());
outputStream.flush();
//}
} catch (Exception e) {
}
}
};
}
public void startIn() {
in.start();
}
This is when it invoke:
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
CommandWrapper command = new CommandWrapper(Runtime.getRuntime()
.exec("wget www.google.com"));
//command.startIn();
command.startOut();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
It works OK when I run simple command like ls -l or other local commander, but when I want to run wget command it is print out nothing as output. I do know why.
From the code you've shown and your description of how you use it, the best guess is that an exception occurs, and you silently swallow it. This happens whenever you have an empty catch-block, like this:
catch (Exception e) {
}
You happen to have one in the run() method of your out thread.
Silently swallowing exceptions is extremely bad practice.
You should never ever ever do this! Depending on your application the appropriate solution varies, but since you're writing a console application you probably want to print the stack trace of the exception. In Java, this is done with e.printStackTrace():
catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Another option (which might not be appropriate in this specific case) is to rethrow the exception, possibly after wrapping it in another exception (for example one you've written specifically for your application):
catch (Exception e) {
throw e;
}
// or
catch (Exception e) {
throw new MyOwnException(e);
}
Doing either of these two (printing stack trace or rethrowing) will ensure that no exceptions go unnoticed.
However, no rule without exceptions ;)
There are cases when it is appropriate to have empty catch-clauses. If you know that some operation might throw an exception and you just want to proceed when it happens, an empty catch-clause is a good way to do it. However, the cases where this is appropriated are limited to (at least) the following conditions:
You must know the specific type of the exception. You never want to catch a general exception (i.e. catch (Exception e) since that might be thrown for any reason which you cannot possibly predict. If you use empty catch clauses, always catch specific exception type (such as IOException).
You must know why the exception was thrown. You should only swallow exceptions that you know the origin of. If you swallow any other exceptions, you'll end up like in this situation, where your code doesn't do what you expect and you can't understand why. Swallowed exceptions are extremely difficult to debug, since they are, well, swallowed, and thereby hidden.
You must know that you don't care about the exception. The reason to use empty catch-clauses is mainly (read: only) to handle situations where the code you're using treats something as exceptional, while you do not. By exeptional in this context we mean "something that shouldn't really happen, and if it does, something is seriously wrong."
An example of when empty catch-clauses are appropriate:
Say that you are using someone elses code that opens a file for reading, given the absolute path of the file. Most such routines throw exceptions if the file does not exist - it is the job of the client code (i.e. the code that calls the "open file routine") to ensure that the file exists before trying to open it. Exceptions will also be thrown if, for example, the user running the program does not have permissions to read the file.
Now, you might not really care why the file couldn't be opened, but if it couldn't you just want to keep going - in that case, you swallow all exceptions related to reading the file (in Java, likely an IOException of some sort). Note that you do not swallow all exceptions - only the ones related to opening the file!
How do I use exceptions and exception handling to make my program continue even if an exception occurs while processing certain files in a set of files?
I want my program to work fine for correct files while for those files which cause an exception in program, it should ignore.
Regards,
magggi
for(File f : files){
try {
process(f); // may throw various exceptions
} catch (Exception e) {
logger.error(e.getMessage(), e);
}
}
You have to use the try/catch/finally blocs.
try{
//Sensitive code
} catch(ExceptionType e){
//Handle exceptions of type ExceptionType or its subclasses
} finally {
//Code ALWAYS executed
}
try will allow you to execute sensitive code which could throw an exception.
catch will handle a particular exception (or any subtype of this exception).
finally will help to execute statements even if an exception is thrown and not catched.
In your case
for(File f : getFiles()){
//You might want to open a file and read it
InputStream fis;
//You might want to write into a file
OutputStream fos;
try{
handleFile(f);
fis = new FileInputStream(f);
fos = new FileOutputStream(f);
} catch(IOException e){
//Handle exceptions due to bad IO
} finally {
//In fact you should do a try/catch for each close operation.
//It was just too verbose to be put here.
try{
//If you handle streams, don't forget to close them.
fis.close();
fos.close();
}catch(IOException e){
//Handle the fact that close didn't work well.
}
}
}
Resources :
oracle.com - Lesson: Exceptions
JLS - exceptions
I guess your new to programming as execeptions are a fairly fundermental concept, as problems can happen out of your control and you need to deal with it.
The basic premise is a try catch block.
try
{
//Your code here that causes problems
}
catch(exception ex)
{
//Your code to handle the exception
}
You 'try' your code, and if an exception is raised, you 'catch' it. And do what you need.
There is also an addition to the catch block in that you can add finally{} below it. Basically even if no exception is raised the finally code is still run. You may wonder the point in this, but its often used with streams/file handling etc to close the stream.
Read more on java exceptions here in tutorials written by Sun (now Oracle)- http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/exceptions/
try
{
//Your code here that causes problems
}
catch(exception ex)
{
//Your code to handle the exception
}
finally
{
//Always do this, i.e. try to read a file, catch any errors, always close the file
}
The question you may ask is how do you catch different exceptions, i.e. is it a null reference, is it divide by zero, is it no file found or file not writeable etc. For this you write several different catch blocks under the try, basically one catch for each type of exception, the use of "exception" is basically a catch all statement, and like in stack of if statements if an "exception" is the first catch block it will catch everything, so if you have several catch blocks ensure exception is the last one.
Again, this is a useful but large topic so you need to read up about it.
Since you are doing multiple files, you need to basically do a loop and within the loop is contained the try/catch block.
so even if one file fails, you catch it, but carry on running, the code will then loop around onto the next file unhindered.
just catch the excpetion it may throw and do nothing with it; eat it as people say :)
But at least log it!
Very concise example:
try {
your code...
} catch (Exception e) {
log here
}
Typically, I would have done this.
ArrayList<Entry> allEntries = getAllEntries();
for(Entry eachEntry:allEntries){
try{
//do all your processing for eachEntry
} catch(Exception e{
ignoredEntries.add(eachEntry);
//if concerned, you can store even the specific problem.
} finally{
//In case of resource release
}
}
if(ignoredEntries.size() > 0){
//Handle this scenario, may be display the error to the user
}
FileSystemException may be the specific exception you are looking for.
Although, a better idea for beginners is to catch an exception and print it using
System.out.println(e);
where e is the caught exception.
public class Main
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
int a=10;
try
{
System.out.println(a/0); //Here it is not possible in maths so it goes to catch block
}
catch(ArithmeticException e)
{
System.out.println("Arithmetic Exception");
}
}
}
output:Arithmetic Exception
Exception in java are runtime error which can be handled by the program, the process is called as exception handling. Parent class of exception is Throwable.
Exception : Exception are those runtime error which can be handled by program.
Error : Those runtime error which can’nt handled by the program.
Tools used to handle Exception:
Try
Catch
Finally
Throw
Throws
more
Wrote up a basic file handler for a Java Homework assignment, and when I got the assignment back I had some notes about failing to catch a few instances:
Buffer from file could have been null.
File was not found
File stream wasn't closed
Here is the block of code that is used for opening a file:
/**
* Create a Filestream, Buffer, and a String to store the Buffer.
*/
FileInputStream fin = null;
BufferedReader buffRead = null;
String loadedString = null;
/** Try to open the file from user input */
try
{
fin = new FileInputStream(programPath + fileToParse);
buffRead = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(fin));
loadedString = buffRead.readLine();
fin.close();
}
/** Catch the error if we can't open the file */
catch(IOException e)
{
System.err.println("CRITICAL: Unable to open text file!");
System.err.println("Exiting!");
System.exit(-1);
}
The one comment I had from him was that fin.close(); needed to be in a finally block, which I did not have at all. But I thought that the way I have created the try/catch it would have prevented an issue with the file not opening.
Let me be clear on a few things: This is not for a current assignment (not trying to get someone to do my own work), I have already created my project and have been graded on it. I did not fully understand my Professor's reasoning myself. Finally, I do not have a lot of Java experience, so I was a little confused why my catch wasn't good enough.
Buffer from file could have been null.
The file may be empty. That is, end-of-file is reach upon opening the file. loadedString = buffRead.readLine() would then have returned null.
Perhaps you should have fixed this by adding something like if (loadedString == null) loadedString = "";
File was not found
As explained in the documentation of the constructor of FileInputStream(String) it may throw a FileNotFoundException. You do catch this in your IOException clause (since FileNotFoundException is an IOException), so it's fine, but you could perhaps have done:
} catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
System.err.println("File not fonud!");
} catch (IOException ioex {
System.err.println("Some other error");
}
File stream wasn't closed
You do call fin.close() which in normal circumstances closes the file stream. Perhaps he means that it's not always closed. The readLine could potentially throw an IOException in which case the close() is skipped. That's the reason for having it in a finally clause (which makes sure it gets called no matter what happens in the try-block. (*)
(*) As #mmyers correctly points out, putting the close() in a finally block will actually not be sufficient since you call System.exit(-1) in the catch-block. If that really is the desired behavior, you could set an error flag in the catch-clause, and exit after the finally-clause if this flag is set.
But what if your program threw an exception on the second or third line of your try block?
buffRead = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(fin));
loadedString = buffRead.readLine();
By this point, a filehandle has been opened and assigned to fin. You could trap the exception but the filehandle would remain open.
You'll want to move the fin.close() statement to a finally block:
} finally {
try {
if (fin != null) {
fin.close();
}
} catch (IOException e2) {
}
}
Say buffRead.readLine() throws an exception, will your FileInputStream ever be closed, or will that line be skipped? The purpose of a finally block is that even in exceptional circumastances, the code in the finally block will execute.
There are a lot of other errors which may happen other than opening the file.
In the end you may end up with a fin which is defined or not which you have to protect against null pointer errors, and do not forget that closing the file can throw a new exception.
My advice is to capture this in a separate routine and let the IOExceptions fly out of it :
something like
private String readFile() throws IOException {
String s;
try {
fin = new FileInputStream(programPath + fileToParse);
buffRead = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(fin));
s = buffRead.readLine();
fin.close();
} finally {
if (fin != null {
fin.close()
}
}
return s
}
and then where you need it :
try {
loadedString = readFile();
} catch (IOException e) {
// handle issue gracefully
}